I have not concealed my skepticism about “cloud computing.” I see only two reason for sticking my data out there somewhere in the care of who knows who, except for off-site backups and collaborative projects. (For anyone who has invested deeply in time or money or both, in websites, software, and data, offsite backups are a good thing.)

“Because it’s there” is an insufficient reason for using any technology.

It is nice to find that I am not alone. Carla Schroder, Managing Editor of Linux Today, lists her reasons for doubting the cloud.

They include (follow the link for explanations and examples of each one):

• Why would I entrust them with my data when they do not respect my privacy or the privacy of my data? In the US personal privacy is not protected, and vendors who mangle and lose your personal or business data pay no penalty or recourse, other than bearing the brunt of your peeve.
• Reliability is a second issue. Google and Skype, to give two famous examples, have distributed datacenters but both have suffered a number of outages and service interruptions.
• The third problem is why in the heck would any sane person trade in their nice sleek efficient standalone applications for a horrible boggy Web browser abomination with a hundredth of the functionality?